Good morning, DWP intends pressing ahead with plans for extending the “Full or Digital Service”, including postal districts and start dates, removing any remaining uncertainty about the new schemes rollout to all areas of Great Britain. Landlords already experiencing Full Service delivery are only now appreciating how different this is…

Good morning Following the Chancellor’s autumn statement, his colleague, David Gauke, Secretary of State for Work & Pensions, made a statement which provides some degree of clarity to what the Government is planning to introduce, and the timetable associated with the new measures. Roll-out slow-down DWP has, only slightly, amended…

Good Morning DWP yesterday published its latest versions of its UC 47 forms, permitting application for a Managed Payment to Landlord (MPTL) commonly referred to as APAs. You can find the new versions here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/universal-credit-landlord-request-for-a-managed-payment-or-rent-arrears-deduction It’s vitally important you start using the correct version of the forms immediately. Failure to…

Good morning DWP has published the latest version of its application form (UC47) designed to assist landlords secure payment of the housing element, rather than it being paid to their tenant. The updated form can be found by clicking the link and should be used immediately. Failure to use the correct version…

Good afternoon, Our 30th July bulletin http://universalcreditadvice.com/housing-associations/2016/07/universal-credit—how-to-pursue-queries-complaints explained how you could raise queries and make complaints to DWP, concerning Universal Credit administration processes, where problems of delays or non-payment of Landlord Managed Payments (LMPs) or Third Party Payments (collectively known as APAs) occur. We continue to press DWP hierarchy to improve the processes…

Good afternoon Inside Housing reported the other day comments made by Marcus Jones, Minister at DCLG, suggesting we won’t have much longer to wait to discover the Government’s final blue-print in relation to Supported Accommodation funding. Apparently, he was speaking at a debate, focused on the Government’s original proposals to…

Good morning DWP has just recently circulated Circular HB A8-2017 to all Local authorities administering Housing Benefits. The purpose of the circular is to explain, to all Housing Benefit “Decision Makers”, that any emergency funds, paid to the victims (and dependants) of the recent terrorist attacks in London & Manchester should…

Good morning Neil Couling, Director General, Universal Credit Programme, wrote to Local Authority Chief Executives, last week, to confirm the Universal Credit “Full Service” (UCFS) rollout will expand to 134 Jobcentre areas, between October and December 2017 (Important – read here). This will, in effect; double the areas affected; the…

Good afternoon Landlords, social & private, are often left out of pocket when councils, completely out of the blue, decide to redirect Housing Benefit/Local Housing Allowance to tenants, even though, sometime in the recent past, it had concluded the award should be made direct to the landlord to prevent rent…

Good morning The House of Commons research team has just published a very informative briefing paper, focused on the government’s proposals to cap the “eligible rents” in both Housing Benefit and Universal Credit (UC) to Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rates from April 2019. You can read more, here. You may…